Texas Country Kin

A distant relative of mine named Billy Cate is a country singer down in Cleburne, Texas, a town on the Old Chisholm Trail. I once heard him play in downtown Fort Worth many years ago, and he played my grandfather's birthday one year, but I would not claim to know him.

A good while back, I was walking along the side of the road and found one of Billy Cate's records in the gravel. It is a doo-wop single that he released in the 1960s on the Manco label, and the record has a Fort Worth address on it. Considering the sheer unlikelihood of finding an old 45 by my distant relative on the side of the road, I keep the record displayed on one of my bookshelves. And that record was the inspiration for this particular blog post.

Here is one of Billy Cate's western swing numbers.